How is Grazia marketed? 
Bauer markets Grazia magazine by showing statistics of how many people buy the publication, and who are the main target audience. 

What content does it include?
It includes fashion, news, features, health & beauty, living and culture. 

How does Grazia continue to be a successful magazine? 
It manages to remain a successful magazine by combining many types of story, ones that some may say do not necessarily relate to one another, but yet it still interest the same type of audience. Real life stories and current affairs are put together with celebrity news making the magazine unique, with something for everyone. It also does many charity appeals. 

What priority does it give to certain stories? 
The stories with the most obvious priorities are the celebrity gossip ones and the real life disaster-themed articles. 

Why do you think this is?
I think this is because both types of stories differ enough for them to be found interesting by different types of people, making the publication appear desirable to more than one target audience. 

What type of story does it consider to be the most important each week?
Celebrity life stories and interviews appear to be the most important, as they come up as the main cover lines to attract the most attention. Also the celebrities that the main stories are about often appear on the cover too. 


Grazia's Layout

1. What might be a typical layout for the front cover of Grazia? Think about fonts, photos, celebrities, cover lines, language, colour etc.
On the front cover of Grazia, the mast head is typically at the top of the page, in large letters. The font of the mast head always remains the same to give the product a sort of logo and recognisable image for the audience. The image on the cover is typically a large, clear paprazzi shot of a famous personality. These types of shots are used to appear "busy" and give a sense of movement, excitement and urgency to the magazine. This suits Grazia magazine because the target audience is busy business women who perhaps might read the magazine in their valuable free time. Yellow is a common colour used on the cover for this magazine, as is pink. These bright colours are eye catching and make the publication stand out amongst other magazines. 

2. What sub headings does Grazia use in its contents page? Are these appropriate for it's target market or can you think of others that might persuade more people to buy Grazia?
The subheadings that Grazia covers in it's contents page are: News, Features, Fashion, Health & Beauty, Living and Culture. These are appropriate for it's target market because the women it is aimed at have jobs and day to day lives that relate to many of these headings, for example Living and Culture. The top subheading is News suggesting that the target audience are intellectual and are perhaps interested in current affairs and like to keep up to date on world issues as well as just fashion and other feminine culture. 
Other examples of topics that could be covered to attract a similar audience are:

• Celebrity News
• Real Life 
• Competitions

Target Audience 

1. Who would you consider to be Grazia's target audience? Why?
Upmarket, fashionable women ranging from 24-45 years old who read glossy weekly magazines about fashion and other feminine culture. It's targeted at these women specifically because they are interested in being up to date every week with the latest gossip and news.
2. How could it widen its target audience? (Think about who it puts on the front cover, articles inside etc..)
By putting different kinds of people on the covers, it may help attract a wider range of women. For example by putting current sports stars on the cover, the magazine would be more likely to be bought by sporty women who enjoy going to the gym or doing other exercise.
3. What conventions does it use to ensure its target audience buys the magazine? 
It often mentions "20% off" certain shops or boutiques that the target audience are expected to want to take advantage of. These offers help to ensure women continue to buy the publication because they trust that they will be rewarded for doing so.

Gender and Ethnicity

1. What do you think the front cover suggests about the gender and ethnicity of Grazia's readers? 
I don't think Grazia tries to target a specific ethnicity, but it does clearly direct itself at women as it looks mainly at women's style, fashion, hair, beauty and life stories.
2. Do the articles inside confirm your ideas?
Yes, because most of the articles specifically look at the women involved and base the content on a woman's perspective. 

Preliminary Production Evaluation

How closely did you stick to your planning? 
I stuck fairly closely to my planning, in that I used the same type of image on my actual cover and my plan mock-up cover. In my photo of a girl holding a book, I had her stood by a tree which I used as the background on my cover. In my planning, I had only considered the girl holding the books and not the back ground of the picture that I still wanted to include. This made it unclear that I didn't want to crop out the girl's figure all together for anyone else looking at my planning. 

What were the challenges in doing this?
I had to find the right location to take my cover photograph, and working out photoshop to apply the different layers to my cover was quite difficult, and I think could take more practice. It's also much easier to draw and plan a magazine cover in your head, in comparison to trying to move around text and images on the macs. 

Did you find the planning helpful? Why?
Yes, I did find it very helpful because it was useful to be able to look back at my plan and judge how much more I needed to add to my magazine cover. I would have found it more useful I think if I'd made more annotations to give me more ideas of directions to go with each page. 

How did you find the process of finding and cropping your original image?
My image was just saved on the recent files so it was easy enough to help. Also, I didn't crop my image very much, I just shortened one edge so in my actual product I will spend more time cropping and manipulating my image to create better effects. 

How easy was it to manipulate your image using photo shop?
I feel like there's a lot more I could have done in photo shop to make my image more impressive, so next time I will change more things about it. I found it quite difficult to work out various different functions on photo shop, so manipulating my image was a challenge. 

What have you learnt from the process about creating covers and contents pages?
That it's important to understand the layers of each page and that I need more practice on photo shop. I also learnt that the left third side of the magazine cover includes interesting topics that are covered in the magazine as this is the part that is seen when it's on the shelf. From previous research I also learnt that pinks and reds are feminine colours used to attract a female audience and the age of the people on the cover can be used to reflect how old the target audience should be.

What would you do differently next time? 
I'd manipulate my image a lot more to make my cover more different and unique. I'd also maybe use a large photo as the background on my contents page to make it more similar to my cover. I may place the character on the cover in front of a plain background so I can crop them out and place them on a background of my choice.

Contents Page Analysis

Wednesday 14th September 2011

This contents page includes text to give a small bit of information about some of the articles that are in the magazine. It also has pictures which relate to those stories, with page numbers appearing on them. 
It's laid out in two sections, pictures on one side and text on the other. It's an organised layout, making it easy to read and understand. It's appeals to the target audience by having good quality photos of nice homes. (Lifestlye magazine)

There are two pictures on this contents page both with the colour pink in, connoting a sense of feminity. "Vogue" is written in large letters along the top acting as a masthead and the contents of the magazine are listed in 4 columns. It's easy to read, and the subheadings are written in red to break up the text and make it easier to skim read. It appeals to the target audience by having beautiful women in the photos, making women who read the magazine have something to aspire to.

Magazine Title Ideas

My magazine is going to be aimed at students who actually go to the school, instead of parents or teachers who want to know important dates and information. 


Existing Magazine Titles:

Creative Steps - I like this one, because you can picture what kind of age the students that go to the school are. (A young age, first starting school.) 
First News Magazine - Quite a boring title for a magazine, doesn't grab attention.
School Today - Quite vague and doesn't explain what school the magazine is for.
Learning News - Doesn't specify what school it's for, not a very eye catching title for a magazine.
The Junior Chronicle - I like this title because it's inventive and looks proffessional.

Magazine Title Ideas: 

Gordano Gazette - I like the illiteration used to attract people's attention. It will target my audience because 
Gordano Weekly - I'm not keen on this title because it's fairly plain and not very creative. 
The Gordano News - I think this is a good title because it's formal but I don't think it would attract the student audience very well. It would be better suited if the magazine was directed at adults. (parents/teachers)

Existing School Magazine Analysis & Research

13th September 2011

Who is the target audience, judging by the cover?
This magazine appears to be specifically directed at parents, because the children on the cover are probably too young to want to read a magazine about their school, and are maybe too young to understand some of the information inside.

How does this cover appeal to the target audience?
Parents are given a good impression of the school by this photo on the cover because the children are well turned out, with perfect uniform which makes the school look like a proffessional safe learning environment. 

What types of stories does it cover?
Not much writing on the cover, so not many hints as to what is inside. Parents are possibly expected to read the magazine to learn important information anyway. 

Is the name typical?
"Prep School" - Not very creative, says purely what it is. 

What layout and colour conventions does it follow?
The red door and red masthead background match the red tights and red ties of the pupils on the cover. 



Who is the target audience, judging by the cover?
Possibly parents and students too, because unlike the other cover these students are older so may take an interest in information about their school and what is going on. 

How does this cover appeal to the target audience?
The students look proud of their work and happy to be achieving high, making parents attracted to the school and want to know more about the subjects which encourage creativity. 

What types of stories does it cover? 
The only cover line on the cover reads "Behind the Mask" relating to the photo of the students with masks they've made at school. 

Is the name typical? 
FFH - The initials of the school name.

What layout and colour conventions does it follow?
The masthead is written in the same burgundy colour as the school jumpers.

First Magazine Media Lesson

7th September

Today we presented our summer magazine media work to the class. I did one poster on a gardening magazine, and one on Look magazine which is about fashion and celebrity gossip.
We also learned lots of media terms that we'll have to rememeber. eg plug & puff.

First Post!

6th September

Today was our first media lesson and we created our blogs to note all of the media work we do and progress we make. We mainly just personalised our blogs and got to grips with how blogspot works. I've never kept a blog before.

(After accidentally forgetting my password and having to create a new blog, the dates on my posts are wrong but the date I actually wrote them is written at the top of each post.)